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The Pit
During the construction of Castle Bastion, a ready source of granite was discovered in a nearby hillside, and quarried mercilessly. During the long years of the castle's construction, the hilltop vanished, replaced by a gaping hole dozens of feet deep, a hole that was abandoned when the Bastion family deemed their castle complete. In that age, the city of Bastion was but a shadow of its current might, a lowly collection of homes nestled around the castle for safety. However, as the might and influence of the Bastion family grew and the port of Bastion attracted more and more traffic, the quarry was reopened to provide the stone needed for building foundations, more extensive docks, and the first of Bastion's city walls. This period of transition dovetailed with the beginnings of Holodghast, and so the quarry enjoyed another twenty years of continuous use before it was closed down once again. Eventually, the city overtook the hill the quarry rested on, and sensing an end to their most reliable source of worthy stone the king ordered on last great expansion, beginning a vast works project that included a vastly expanded city wall and the Royal Canal. Thousands of workers toiled in the pits of the royal quarry for years, the city slowly expanding to surround them, until in 1104 they were finished. The quarry was closed for the last time, the crown ceding the worthless land to the city. One might think the gaping hole, now hundreds of feet deep, might have remained a simple eyesore, but it was not to be. For as Bastion's prosperity grew the flow of immigrants to the city grew as well. Many found their prosperity, but as with anything, some did not, and in their desperation they fled to the one place in the city with abundant space - the old quarry. Over the course of fifty years, a vast shantytown grew along the quarry's old steppes, the poor and the desperate carving caves into the stony walls, erecting hovels of timber and castoff slate. Now, The Pit is a hole where Bastion's most desperate crawl to live out the remainder of their lives, a brutal slum where the watch dares not venture and even the organized gangs of the waterfront are not welcome. Over the years, various kings and princes have tried to bring a modicum of civility to the ghetto, including one famous debacle where the uncle of the current king attempted to have the Pit connected to the city's sewers. He succeeded, but not before three riots had claimed nearly a hundred lives and the project's budget had expanded tenfold. The connection of The Pit to the sewers is widely seen as the last involvement desired by the crown, as charitable missions into the district have become nonexistent under the rule of King Haliban. Conscious of the lawless nature of the place, the First Regiment has established checkpoints at every exit from the district, a show of authority that some in The Pit liken to a penal colony. However, as many as ten thousand people continue to eke out an existence in the shadow of Bastion's old prosperity, living and dying beneath the gaze of the city proper.